


Two Seconds Too Late

by justanotherfangirl2571



Series: Dear Death, Please come for me next [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Depressed Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Identity Reveal, Kwami Swap, Miraculous Ladybug - Freeform, Miraculous Ladybug AU, Panic Attacks, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:48:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21614830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanotherfangirl2571/pseuds/justanotherfangirl2571
Summary: The Ladybug Miraculous can't fix everything. Although magic defies the laws of life, death is the only thing that cannot be undone.Being Chatte Noire isn't as easy as it looks. Marinette has a panic attack in the locker rooms after a bad Akuma leaves her with more blood on her hands.
Series: Dear Death, Please come for me next [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1557793
Comments: 3
Kudos: 124





	Two Seconds Too Late

_Two Seconds._

At the moment, It felt like an agonizingly long amount of time.

Usually, two seconds could go without care. Two seconds. What help were two seconds?

But here she was. Agonizing over a mere fraction of time.

Marinette's nails dug into her palms harder and harder until she could feel the blood dripping from her fists. Her breathing wasn't slowing down. 

Suddenly she was uncomfortable. Whatever it was, she wanted it to go away. She yanked the pigtails loose from her hair and pulled on the roots of her hair, coating her blue locks in blood. 

She sobbed, her eyes wide. Nothing was making sense. She couldn't hear anything but Tikki was right there, begging her to stop. Her chest was heavy. The tears were falling faster down her face. 

She couldn't breathe. She wanted it to stop. Somebody, _please_ make it stop.

Marinette's panic let out a flash of anger. Whirling around, she punched her locker. It dented and stained with red. 

"Make it stop." She cried, hopelessness falling around her once more. 

Marinette wanted, no--she _needed_ it to stop. She continued to pull her hair. 

It wouldn't stop. Because nothing could fix what happened. 

Marinette was used to casualties. With every villain came a number of deaths that could never be undone.

This time was particularly bad. 

_'All she had to do was stop the bus.'_ She remembered. That was all. But if that was all then how did she fail? 

Stop the bus before it crashes. It seemed easy enough. But she couldn't run fast enough. Even now, her legs ached. 

It was _right there_. She couldn't catch it but it was right there! If only she had a little more time. 

Two seconds. She had been two seconds too late. Two seconds out of reach.

It was because she hadn't pushed herself. 

Yes, that must be it. She wasn't good enough. Marinette knew that as an indisputable fact. She wished that the Cat miraculous had been given to someone else. She wasn't good enough to be a hero and she wasn't good enough to stand by his side!

At the end of it all, when the Akuma was defeated and Red Beetle had fixed the destruction, the number of deaths hadn't changed. 

She could still see it. A bus crumpled like an empty soda can. 

She could still hear it. The screams of men, women, and children as they sped out of control and smashed into a building. 

Now there's an undamaged bus sat at a bus stop with an interior painted red. 

It was her fault. 

If only she had been two seconds faster.

Maybe it was okay if she couldn't breathe. If she died maybe she would atone for what she did. 

"Marinette!"

_Two seconds._

Her knees hit the floor but she couldn't feel the pain. She slammed her back against the wall and banged the locker again with her fist. 

_Two seconds._

"Marinette!"

_Two seconds._

Damn it all! Damn it Damn it Damn it! Maybe it would really be better if she just died--

"Marinette!" A voice brought her back to reality. 

Someone was kneeling in front of her. They were holding her wrists, shaking her worriedly. 

She did her best to blink away he tears. She made out the blurred outline of Adrien. 

"Marinette, breathe!" He begged. "Please, just breathe."

She tried to follow his breaths and then dissolved into sobs, pulling her hands away to cover her face as she cried. 

"Adrien?" She managed out. 

"Yeah, I'm here! I'm here. What happened?" 

She shook her head and wiped her tears with her wrists. She took a few seconds to control her breathing. She didn't like it when people saw her cry. Marinette could tell she looked like a psycho. 

"I'm sorry." Her voice was shaky. 

"Marinette, tell me what happened." He pleaded. 

She looked into his eyes and her sadness was covered with a look of confusion.

"Adrien?" She sniffed. "Why are you crying?" 

His eyes filled with more tears. "Marinette, why are you worried about me? You're bleeding." His voice wavered. 

He wiped his face and pulled her up. He brought her to the bathroom. At the moment, he didn't give a shit whether or not someone saw him in the girls' restroom. He turned on the faucet and pushed her hands beneath the running water. 

Marinette whimpered at the sudden sting but kept silent. At another faucet, Adrien took wet paper towels and began to clean her face of her tears stains and blood smears. 

He took a hair tie from her wrist and tied her hair into the best bun he could manage. He removed her hands from the water and wiped then down. Then he wrapped them tightly in paper towels. 

  
Adrien watched Marinette carefully. She only stared into the sink. 

"Marinette," He tried again. "What happened?" 

When she spoke, he almost didn't hear her. He shut the water off and she answered.

"I couldn't stop the bus." 


End file.
